Australia, Indonesia in row over Papuan refugees
Canberra awarded visas to 42 who said they were fleeing state-sponsored genocide in West Papua.
Indonesia has called for a summit with Australia in order to resolve a worsening diplomatic crisis between the two countries, sparked by Australia's decision to recognize 42 Papuans as refugees.
The Advertiser of South Australia reports that Indonesia says the Australian government
overstepped its bounds in recognizing the Papuans, who have accused the Indonesian government of a policy of genocide against the Papuan people.
President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono's spokesman, Andi Mallarangeng, insisted Canberra had no reason to grant visas to the Papuans, who landed on Cape York in January claiming they were victims of human rights abuses....
"We have always been with Australia and we have interest in having a good relationship with Australia," said Mr Mallarangeng.
"But I think we need to sit down and talk with Australia - I think leader to leader - about the issue, about the relationship, and then build that relationship from now on."
The Melanesian people of West Papua have been seeking some level of independence for decades, reports
Time, but
their story is largely unknown, even to those in neighboring Australia.
Close as it is to their shores, the western half of the island of New Guinea remains a mystery to most Australians - as does its Melanesian people's 40-year struggle for self-rule. Home to vast mineral and timber wealth, West Papua's status is an accident of colonialism: retained by the Dutch when Indonesia declared independence in 1945, it came under Indonesian rule after the Act of Free Choice referendum in 1969 - a change decried by many Papuans, who say the 1,000 voters were hand-picked by Indonesia.
Since then, the Organisasi Papua Merdeka (OPM), or Free Papua Movement, has waged an independence struggle of peaceful protests and occasional attacks by poorly equipped guerrillas on Indonesian soldiers and foreign interests like the giant Freeport gold mine. Jakarta, which does not want to forfeit Papua's natural wealth or see another province break away as East Timor did in 1999, agreed in 2001 to a Special Autonomy Law. But independence supporters say little has changed since then. Access to the province is notoriously difficult but in recent years human-rights groups have documented a range of abuses by Indonesian security forces, such as rape, torture, abductions and thousands of deaths.
Herman Wainggai, one of the refugees, told Time that the group decided to travel to Australia, rather than to Papua New Guinea, on the eastern half of the island, because, "We have not received any serious international attention by seeking asylum in P.N.G.... We decided that because of Australia's role in taking responsibility in the Pacific area we would come here."
But in calling for a summit with Australia,
The Age reports, Mr. Mallarangeng insisted that Indonesia
would not grant West Papua independence "There will be no dialogue on Papuan independence ... but we can have a dialogue on the implementation of regional autonomy to build Papua," he said.
He also denied that West Papuans were the subject of human rights abuses. He cited the recent deaths of Indonesian soldiers, two on Monday and five earlier in March, as evidence, saying they were killed in combat as a result of being ordered not to use excessive force in fighting Papuan separatists.
"Soldiers die because they were instructed by the President not to do a violent action, not to violate human rights and (make) no reason for a second Santa Cruz in Papua. That's a direct order from the President." (The international campaign for East Timor's independence gained momentum after Indonesian forces killed more than 200 demonstrators in and outside the Santa Cruz cemetery in 1991.)
Although the 42 Papuans arrived in January, the diplomatic crisis began in earnest in March when the Australian government recognized them as refugees. In response, Jakarta
recalled its ambassador and declared that it would reexamine its ties to Australia. Ties quickly soured between the two countries, and even sparked a
brief but coarse cartoon battle between Australian and Indonesian newspapers.
Prior to the Papuan rift, relations between the two countries had been on the rebound, good will having been largely restored after strains from Australia's
military intervention in East Timor and Australian participation in the invasion of Iraq. Sian Powell, a writer for
The Australian, reports that all that good will has now
gone out the window.
After East Timor and Iraq, Australia had scraped back into Indonesia's good graces with frequent ministerial visits and buckets of aid: $1 billion after the devastating tsunami, almost bottomless assistance with terror investigations, and the unremitting efforts of one of Australia's biggest embassies. All that good feeling evaporated in a day. Indonesia sees the Papuan visas offer as a gross insult, tantamount to accepting Papuans' claims that Indonesia maltreats them, rapes and tortures them, and tramples on their rights....
The Papuans' visa controversy has inflamed tensions more, in some ways, than Australia's participation in the coalition of the willing. Rarely has the Indonesian Government reacted so angrily, and the denunciation by Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono was unprecedented. Repairing relations will be a very long haul for Australian diplomats - and if there are any more boatloads of Papuans making sail for Australia, things will only get frostier.
In response to Jakarta's concern over visas for the Papuans,
The Daily Telegraph of Australia reports that Prime Minister Howard called for
a review of the visa process and declined to address the issue of Indonesian human rights abuses in West Papua. He did, however, voice support for President Yudhoyono and suggested that West Papua's future lay in remaining a part of Indonesia.
"We've had endless discussion about terrorism and one of the greatest anti-terrorist blows that can be struck is a successful, progressive, democratic Indonesia.
"And the best hope of that lies in the unity of that country and the success of the leadership of (President) Bambang Yudhoyono.
"The message to those people who are particularly sympathetic to the West Papuan cause, the worst thing that could happen to the West Papuans is the fragmentation of Indonesia.
"The best path forward for West Papua is to be part of a more prosperous, more democratic Indonesia."
Reuters reports, however, that Howard's recommendations regarding visa process changes, which include discussion about asylum-seekers with the government from which they are fleeing, have been
blasted by Amnesty International. "You wouldn't talk to Saddam Hussein when people were fleeing Iraq," said Amnesty International Australia refugee coordinator Graham Thom. "You wouldn't talk to the Taliban when people were fleeing Afghanistan. To suggest that this is appropriate in any circumstances is quite clearly wrong."
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